"Swift, Lord, You Are Not"

At the young age of seventy-five, Benedictine monk Kilian McDonnell began writing poetry.  His published work entitled, Swift, Lord, You Are Not, published by St. John's University Press (Collegeville, MN) in 2003 is a collection of his poetry.  I like McDonnell's style, it feels both raw and insightful.  At his age, the wisdom of the years have instilled a sense of the genuine, authentic, and true self.  The art of crafting poetry, so it seems to McDonnell, is truly incarnational.  Take, for example, this one poem that spoke to me.  I wondered what fires are best unremembered for this monk.    

Don't Look Too Carefully

"O search me God and know my heart" Psalm 39:23

by Kilian McDonnell, OSB

What sudden senile arrogance

provoked this bid to despair?

If you knock, God, be prepared

to see what stands behind the door:

unswept floors, unmade

beds, unwashed dishes

in sink, a lone Giotto

unhung against the wall.

(I, too, have been to the Uffizi,

read Dostoevski, Yeats.)

If you turn over a stone

on my beach, what creatures scurry.

Dig in my ruins, you sift

buried rags of intent.

Uproot my elm, you pulled up

forgotten teen-age tinsel.

Poke my cinders, you stir

fires best unremembered.

Search me not, test

no more.  Take me as I am.